Keir Starmer alongside school children on the day he announced the expansion of free school meals. Image: No 10 Downing Street/ Simon Dawson
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Labour has made repeated promises to bring down child poverty in the UK. Keir Starmer pledged that his government would establish an “ambitious” and “wide-ranging” strategy to protect children from hardship, and one of the first moves his government made was to establish a ministerial taskforce to come up with a plan.
The Child Poverty Strategy was expected in spring this year but it was quietly pushed back until autumn. There is still no set date for the strategy to be published, and parliament has gone into recess for conference season, set to return in mid-October.
It is widely expected that the Child Poverty Strategy will be released around the time of the chancellor’s autumn budget, although Starmer and his ministers have made no guarantees.
Child poverty rates in the UK have never been worse, with the latest statistics showing that a record 4.5 million children were living in poverty in 2024. That is one in three children facing hunger and hardship.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
The government has not been sitting on its hands waiting for a Child Poverty Strategy before it takes action. It extended free school meals to all children on universal credit, a move that helped half a million children, and it has introduced free breakfast clubs.
It invested £500 million in children’s development through the roll out of Best Start Family Hubs, where families can access a range of information and practical support through a child’s early years. And it introduced a £1 billion crisis support package, which the government claims will ensure “the poorest don’t go hungry in the holidays”.
But the scale of child poverty in the UK means that charities are hoping for more ambitious measures to be set out in the strategy published this autumn.
A government spokesperson said: “Every child, no matter their background, deserves the best start in life. That’s why our Child Poverty Taskforce will publish an ambitious strategy to tackle the structural and root causes of child poverty.”
The taskforce was established soon after Labour won the general election. It was led by education secretary Bridget Phillipson and former work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall. A recent cabinet reshuffle means there has been a change of hands and new work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden will have to be brought up to date with the strategy.
The government promised that the ministers would work alongside children’s charities, experts and families with lived experience of poverty in creating the strategy.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Children’s charities and campaigners agree that the most cost-effective way to lift children out of poverty would be to end the two-child limit on benefits, a policy which is believed to be trapping hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.
But so far, the government has refused to commit to scrapping the two-child limit. Ministers have acknowledged that it would be an effective way to tackle child poverty, but they have also said it would be an “expensive” move while the government faces financial pressures – particularly after it was forced to U-turn on its disability benefit cuts.
If the cuts to personal independence payment (PIP) had gone ahead, the government estimated that 50,000 children would have been pushed into poverty. The government did go ahead with cuts to the health element of universal credit for new claimants, but it is also set to raise the standard rate of universal credit by £7 a week.
This move will lift around 50,000 children out of poverty by the end of this parliament, although the impact of the cuts could mean thousands are pushed into poverty at the same time.
Charities would also like to see an end to the benefit cap, which limits the amount of benefits households can get and has a particularly negative impact on larger families.
Lynn Perry, chief executive of Barnardo’s, said: “With nearly one in three children growing up in poverty, too many children are going for days without a hot meal, sleeping in rooms covered in black mould or starting a new school year in uniform and shoes that don’t fit. It has a huge impact on their lives – both now and long into adulthood.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
“The upcoming Child Poverty Strategy is an opportunity for the government to change the futures of millions of children, giving them the chance to thrive. When the strategy does arrive, we need to see decisive action – in particular an end to both the two-child limit on benefit payments and the benefit cap.”
Barnardo’s is also urging the government to implement auto-enrolment for free school meals, as well as investment in early intervention and measures to tackle structural inequalities to ensure that children from marginalised backgrounds get protections.
The charity wants to see a target to reduce child poverty to no more than 28% in this parliament, alongside milestones to halve child poverty in 10 years and eradicate it in 20 years. It argues that the strategy needs a clear accountability framework with regular updates to parliament.
Big Issue is similarly campaigning for the government to introduce legal targets to reduce poverty in the UK. A Poverty Zero law would require governments to set poverty reductions targets, and hold them legally accountable to those commitments.
Lord John Bird, founder of the Big Issue, submitted an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill in June calling for statutory targets to reduce child poverty. But this was rejected by the government, with Baroness Jacqui Smith arguing that targets “would not in themselves drive reductions in poverty”.
Charity Christians Against Poverty found earlier this summer that one in 10 parents in the UK have skipped meals in the past year so that their children can eat. More than one in three parents with children under the age of five (35%) have debt they are struggling to pay.
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Nicole, a mother of two who has been supported by Christians Against Poverty, understands the feeling of being forced to make sacrifices for her children.
“I’d have to skip meals. I’d go around with holes in my shoes, clothes that were clearly worn, just so they could eat and they could have the clothes and things that they needed,” Nicole says.
She had first started struggling with bills when she was a university student. She had hoped to train to be a teacher but she had to drop out of the degree after she had to move home for family reasons and she could no longer afford the commute. She had loans she had taken out and was behind on bills and the debt spiralled.
Nicole, a mum of two, needed charity support to get out of debt and support her family. But she feels that the government must do more. Image: Jonathan Cherry
For years, Nicole struggled financially, and it became harder when she became a mum. Her mental health suffered as a result of the stress. “It’s a really lonely place,” she says.
She sought help a few years ago, and Christians Against Poverty supported her to become debt free, contacting her debtors on her behalf and being the point of contact for bailiffs.
Nicole and her family are now doing much better, but she fears for the families who are having to sacrifice essentials to make ends meet. “It makes you angry to know people are struggling,” she says. “Why are we struggling so much?”
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
The latest research from the UK’s largest food bank network Trussell showed that more than one in four (27%) children are now growing up in a household facing hunger and hardship, and children aged five and under at the hardest hit, with one in three (31%) living in a food insecure household.
Annie, a mum from the south-west of England, said: “As a single mum with a job in retail, I work all the hours I can to provide for my daughter. But my income is so low that it needs to be topped up by universal credit – and even then, it’s still not enough to cover the rising cost of living.
“By the end of the month, all the money has run out, and I often skip meals to make sure my daughter can eat. There are times when we’ve had no choice but to go to the food bank. I am grateful the food bank is there to support me – but it shouldn’t have to be this way.”
Trussell has joined calls for the government to end the two-child limit on benefits. It also wants to see the government provide better support to renters on a low income by uprating the local housing allowance in line with current rent levels.
Helen Barnard, director of policy, research and impact at Trussell, said: “The UK government rightly committed to end the need for food banks and ensure every child has the best possible start in life; this research is the benchmark against which they will be judged.
“Parents are telling us they are losing sleep, worrying about how they will pay for new shoes, school trips, keep the lights on, or afford the bus fare to work. We have already created a generation of children who’ve never known life without food banks. That must change. We have seen small steps of progress. We now need the UK government to match urgency with ambition to turn the tide of hunger and hardship, for good.”
Advertising helps fund Big Issue’s mission to end poverty
Beyond an end to the the two-child limit on benefits, Save the Children has called for a triple lock on child benefits, modelled on the pensions triple lock, which would mean the benefit is raised by whichever is highest: inflation, average earnings or 2.5%.
It’s a call backed by London-based charity the Childhood Trust. Its chief executive, Josephine McCartney, said: “We wholeheartedly support calls for essential policy changes, including a ‘triple-lock’ on all child-related benefits and the removal of the two-child limit. We also strongly advocate for ensuring free school meals are automatic for all eligible children. The scale of this challenge calls for a united response.”
